Commedia
by toujourspret
Summary: Written for the cg kinkmeme - Millay's looking for her Romeo; she's already got the perfect Juliet!


_Author's Note: This one was written over on the cg_kinkmeme again, this time blending my love of the stage, Shakespeare, and theatre history with my love of making hot boys do dirty things to each other, haha! I had a blast looking up/adapting Shakespeare quotes to fit the prompt, but for the most part you don't really need to know any of that. There's a link to a mask of Scaramouche on my profile, for those that need it._

_Somehow, I'd imagine this wasn't how my professors imagined I'd be using my major, lolol._

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**Commedia**

His corset was too tight. It was _too tight_, and he was beginning to think he might faint.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Shirley was caterwauling from the stage. "Thou art more lovely--" she broke off, giggling. Lelouch put a hand up to steady the heavy, ornate wig on his head, and frowned.

"And more temperate!" Millay prompted, laughing at the sour expression on his face.

"Can I come down from here yet?" Lelouch called from the balcony.

"Nay, fair maiden, for we have not yet found our Romeo!" Millay answered.

"Why do I have to be Juliet, anyway?" Lelouch demanded petulantly, kicking at a rail in irritation. "It's not like there aren't enough _actual_ girls here willing to play the part!" Nina shot him a look of terror, and he sighed, slumping down to rest his arms against the balcony.

"Well you can't be Romeo, obviously," Millay said.

"I rather see myself as Tybalt," Lelouch retorted, dropping his chin to rest on his arms. "We've been at this for hours," he whined. "Can I at least have a bathroom break or something?"

"Oh, fine, Mr. Complainer! Fifteen minutes for a bathroom break!" Millay announced, clapping her hands. Dozens of doublet-clad hopefuls seemed to disappear like smoke. She pouted, rounding on Lelouch as he struggled to untangle his skirts from the ladder. "You'd better be back on time," she warned.

Hiking his skirts as manfully as he could, Lelouch shrugged and strode in the direction of the dressing rooms. His elegant exit was marred only by his foot catching on his petticoat, leaving him sprawling on the floor. Millay followed him as he huffed off stage, calling after him.

"Exit Lelouch, persued by a bear," Lelouch muttered to himself, throwing open the door to reveal a half-dressed Suzaku struggling to attach a truly ridiculous codpiece. Suzaku blinked at him with wide green eyes, then snorted, doubling over with laughter. A muscle in Lelouch's jaw ticked. "What?" he demanded.

"That getup!" Suzaku declared breathlessly between laughs. "I don't know what's better: the corset making mountains out of molehills or the lopsided wig that's got you always turning left!"

"Oh god, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" Lelouch said bitingly. "Or in other words, shut up, idiot."

"No, no, you're pretty!" Suzaku protested. "Really, really pretty." He could almost bite back the snickers.

"What about you, Mr. 'I'm overcompensating rather a lot with this giant pillow shoved down the front of my pants'?"

Suzaku swallowed, blushing. "Millay picked the outfits, didn't she?" he said, fiddling awkwardly with the chain.

"Oh, come here." Lelouch sighed, turning Suzaku around to adjust the waist of the codpiece. "This thing is ridiculous," he said, turning Suzaku back to adjust the front.

"It's like wearing a giant billboard advertising my…," Suzaku trailed off, blushing deeper.

"Well, isn't that the idea?" Lelouch pointed out. "Romeo can't be impotent, after all. He's got to have a huge cock."

Suzaku stared at him. Lelouch coughed, flushing, and turned to the mirror. "My wig's lopsided?" he asked, reaching up to tug and poke it back into a reasonable shape. "It's so heavy," he complained, rolling his shoulders. Warm hands settled over his bare flesh, raising gooseflesh as the calluses gently scratched his skin. A breath puffed across his neck, tickling the fine stray curls where they brushed down his back.

"You're really tense," Suzaku told him, just pressing in with his thumbs against the corded muscles beneath his hands. Lelouch shivered, melting.

"In sooth, I know not why I am so stressed," Lelouch quipped, smiling wryly. "Oh, wait. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's Millay. Mystery solved.

"So," he asked lightly, trying to ignore the splay of Suzaku's fingertips against his collarbone as he worked, "what are you auditioning with?"

"Hm? Oh, I didn't have any idea what to use, so I let Millay pick that, too," Suzaku said absently. "I don't really understand it, though. The language is a little stuffy."

"Go ahead, and I'll see if I can't help you, then," Lelouch said. His eyes drifted closed as Suzaku began.

"_A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, / Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion_," Suzaku recited. Lelouch frowned. "What?"

"Millay picked this one out?" Lelouch asked. "For you to say to me on stage."

"Yeah," Suzaku said. "Is something wrong? I figured it just means that she--the one the poem's about--is naturally really pretty."

"Sort of," Lelouch muttered.

"Anyway," Suzaku continued. "_A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted / With shifting change, as is false women's fashion: / An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, / Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;_ She's a tomboy, isn't she?"

"Not quite." Lelouch could feel his face flaming.

"It makes me think of you, for some reason," Suzaku said absently. He completely misinterpreted Lelouch's squeak of alarm as a cry of pain, jerking back from him. "Are you okay?"

"Fine!" Lelouch yelped, popping up from the seat and smoothing his skirts down in frantic, spastic bursts. "I'm fine!" He pulled up the frothy lace sleeves to bare his wrist, crying, "Oh, my, is that the time? Millay will want me back on stage now!" His laughter was sharp-edged and manic. "Good luck on your audition! Oh! I know what will help: do a reading instead of that poem! Um," he hewed, flipping through the stack of monologues piled on the end of the dressing table. "Hamlet! _To be, or not to be--_"

"Millay told me if I did that one she'd pull my nose hairs out, one by one, on stage. And that it would be more entertaining to the audience than that tired, rehashed muck," Suzaku informed him. "And anyway, what's wrong with the one I'm doing? Did I do a bad job?" His voice sounded strangely vulnerable. Glancing at him, Lelouch saw slumped shoulders as Suzaku listlessly poked through the stack.

Giving in, Lelouch sighed gustily. "It's fine, Suzaku. Better than fine; I'm really impressed. There are a lot of kids who've spoken English all their lives who can't memorize Shakespeare. If you don't win, it'll have been a crime," he told his friend, patting him on the shoulder. Suzaku's face lit up, and Lelouch had to dodge a hug before slipping back out onto the stage.

Suzaku wasn't the next to audition. No, that would have been too kind of Millay; there were still people at lunch who might miss the spectacle. As actor after actor came on stage, said his or her bit, and took their seat, Lelouch watched the slowly filling audience with growing horror. Millay's face twisted like a Cheshire cat and he realized he was looking down at Suzaku, all bright, exuberant eyes and messy brown curls and _good Lord, what had Millay dressed him in_? He'd seen the white hose, the enormous codpiece during the break. He'd expected some sort of doublet, since all of the other actors had been wearing doublets, but that _mask_….

_Scaramouche_, his mind supplied distantly, in a quiet voice almost overwhelmed by the thundering of his blood in his temples and the far-off wail of distress echoing in his ears. Another voice was calmly informing him that Millay had gone just a touch too far this time, and that he should punish her, while one teensy, quailing voice couldn't stop repeating 'he's going to talk about your prick, he's going to talk about your prick wearing _that_' and 'oh god, is it too late to transfer schools and burn this one down?'

Contrary to first impressions, this was not a costume for the man insecure about the size of his penis. The huge codpiece, the incredibly phallic mask--he swore that nose extended more than a foot from Suzaku's face--there would be absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone seeing this travesty just _exactly_ what was meant by those lines. He shivered, a well of hopeless fury creeping over him.

The worst part was that he wanted to block the performance out and couldn't. Suzaku was his best friend, but he would have gladly blocked the whole thing out but for one thing: Suzaku's voice. It wasn't like the poem wasn't beautiful. It spoke of love and desire in ways that anyone could ever hope to be loved and desired. Even the _sound_ of it was sensual, all sibilant hissing and short, sharp, almost moaned vowels. The meter of it was driving, insistent in its admiration.

Suzaku had gone silent. Lelouch looked up from where he'd buried his face in his hands in mortification and was caught by those eyes peering at him through the gleaming crimson leather of the mask. Suzaku's lips trembled. He was stuck. Lelouch gave him a shaky smile of encouragement and he frowned, trying again. "_And for a woman wert thou first created_--" He stopped again, lifting one hand to lift the mask and address Millay. "I'm sorry. I'm doing this wrong."

"You're doing fine," she assured him, smiling.

"No, I mean this way isn't right. I can't say these things to him up on the balcony," Suzaku said, shaking his head. Lelouch's heart stuttered; Suzaku understood the spectacular ass Millay had made of him?

"He needs to be down here on the stage. With me," Suzaku clarified, and Lelouch gaped. Numbly, he climbed down from the balcony to stand beside him. "What the poet wrote--what Shakespeare's trying to say here--aren't things that can be shouted across the room.

"_A woman's face_," Suzaku started again, touching the back of one finger to Lelouch's jaw. Their eyes met, and Suzaku's were wild, verdant and satiric. "_--with Nature's own hand painted hast thou_," he smirked, tracing a thumb along the high blush on Lelouch's cheekbone, "_the Master-Mistress of my passion_!"

Lelouch gasped as Suzaku pressed a hand against where the corset squeezed his chest and tugged him back into his embrace. The nose of his mask dipped inquisitively over his bare shoulder as Suzaku's hand roamed freely and suggestively over his chest. Lelouch could feel his heartbeat thudding against his collarbone painfully, as if he'd been running.

"_A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted with shifting change_," here, Suzaku nuzzled him with the nose of his mask, adding slyly, "_--as is false _women's_ fashion._" His breath was hot on Lelouch's neck, raising the tiny hairs to stand as he continued. "_An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling_--" He stood back, a smile evident in his voice though Lelouch refused to turn to look at him. "_Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth._

"_A man in _all_ hues in his controlling, which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth_." And he'd be damned if the leer he heard in those words didn't make his stomach knot in nervous pleasure. Suzaku chuckled, low enough that he imagined he was the only one to hear. Low enough that it was more felt, buzzing along his skin, than anything else. "_And for a woman wert thou first created, 'till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, and by addition me of thee defeated_--" Lelouch let out a shaky breath, relishing the cool glide of leather against his jaw as Suzaku again pressed himself against his back. Suzaku's hand pressed against his chest until he was sure he felt the rabbit-beat of his heart through the heavy fabric. As he spoke, the hand drifted slowly down. "_--by adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But_," he said slyly, "_since she _prick'd_ thee out for women's pleasure_--" he punctuated the word with a hearty grope that left Lelouch gaping at his audacity and the audience in stunned titters, "--mine_ be thy love and thy love's use their treasure_."

It was the applause that finally shook Lelouch out of his stupor. Suzaku had shoved the ridiculous mask onto his forehead, curls spilling around it in a way that made his still uncalmed stomach feel light and dizzy. He watched him bow, and he watched Millay stand up, clipboard in hand. "And with that _inspired_ performance, auditions are over! Expect the results to be posted in three days' time on the board outside the…." Her voice was swallowed by the chatter of students as they gathered their things and left the auditorium. Lelouch watched until the seats were empty and shivered, sweat cooling on his shoulders suddenly.

In the dressing room, Suzaku still hadn't changed out of his costume. Lelouch raised an eyebrow at him. "Still not dressed?"

"I think I like these clothes," Suzaku said cheerfully, tugging the mask down to look at himself in the mirror. "I look like a totally different person."

"That _mask_," Lelouch said disparagingly. "It's awful. Like something out of a Roman porno or something."

Suzaku was silent, lifting and lowering the mask to study it in the mirror from different angles. Finally, he said, "So why didn't you tell me I was going to be making an idiot of myself on stage?"

"You just seemed so excited," Lelouch told him, smiling ruefully. "I didn't want to make you nervous. You were great, by the way."

"Once I figured out what I was actually saying," Suzaku agreed, tugging the mask back into place before turning to Lelouch.

"Take that thing off," Lelouch complained, turning away from him to fiddle with the laces of the corset. "It's giving me the creeps."

"I like it," Suzaku said, his voice closer than Lelouch had expected. He jumped when the nose of the mask bumped between his shoulder blades and warm hands covered his. "You need some help?"

"Y-yeah," Lelouch told him, ducking his head. "I think Millay knotted the ties or something; I can't get them undone." He offered his back to Suzaku, trying not to blush when the nose of the mask slid over his shoulder again as Suzaku lowered his face to study the ladder of laces going up his back. "You like the mask?" he asked, making nervous noise to fill the room.

"I do," Suzaku told him. His fingers worked beneath the thin cord, tugging and pinching until, with a soft _twang_, the laces suddenly loosened. Lelouch let out a surprised puff, feeling strangely vulnerable and exposed after being constricted so long. He clutched the garment to his chest virginally, and Suzaku laughed. "It makes me feel…sexy, I think," Suzaku told him, and for a wild moment, Lelouch thought he meant the corset.

"Like Alex DeLarge," Lelouch muttered.

"Who?" Suzaku asked, confused.

"Don't worry about it. You really were very good up there on the stage, Suzaku. You could be an actor instead of a soldier any day," Lelouch told him in a voice filled with fake cheer.

Suzaku chuckled, reaching out to slide a finger between the edges of the corset, dragging the laces until they fell to the ground in a clump. "What are you--?" Lelouch spluttered.

"You seem to like that thing as much as I like my mask," Suzaku told him playfully. "You've been clutching it for the past five minutes like it's a life vest and the room is flooding."

"I--" Lelouch stood there, back hunched nervously as Suzaku gently pulled the corset away. He could feel Suzaku's eyes burning across the skin of his back. "I feel naked," he confessed, biting his lip when Suzaku's body heat drew closer. A fingertip traced the crisscrossing creases left behind by the laces that dented his skin before sliding around to the front to repeat the move from their performance earlier. Lelouch's nipple was hard under the palm of Suzaku's hand.

The leather mask's nose bumped against the bottom of his earlobe as Suzaku moved to taste the skin of his nape. The enormous padded codpiece bumped against him and he blushed, whimpering as Suzaku pinched his nipple and rolled it between his fingers. He turned his face slightly and the mask was skimming his cheek as Suzaku kissed him, free hand coming around to cup him through his skirts.

A twinge in his scalp reminded him that he hadn't removed the heavy wig. Carefully extracting himself from Suzaku's grasp, he gave him a sultry look and moved to the mirror, carefully unpinning the wig from its cap and tugging the nylon from his head. The boy in the mirror was an interesting sight: face smeared with mussed makeup and a bare, flat chest and full skirts. He groaned as the grinning mask appeared over his shoulder and Suzaku rolled his hips against his ass. His fingers tightened on the vanity, cheeks flushing as Suzaku lifted his skirts in the back to palm him through the silk fabric of his briefs.

"It looks like you're wearing panties," Suzaku whispered, and Lelouch jerked in his grasp, lashes fluttering.

"The whole time we were on stage, I was wondering what they'd do if you took me there," Lelouch murmured, hot words clinging like his breath on the glass mirror. Suzaku groaned, and he heard the jingling of chains behind him as he pulled himself out. His briefs were pulled down unceremoniously, barely to his knees before Suzaku had sheathed himself inside him, leaving him gasping. He waited only a moment to make sure he was okay before drawing back until only the tip was still inside, then slamming in so hard the lights on the vanity buzzed and shook. Lelouch whimpered.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Suzaku asked, voice breathy as he thrust hard enough to make the wood creak and groan. Lelouch's mouth fell open and he grinned, a leering devil's face in the mirror. Fishing a hand beneath the skirts, Suzaku rubbed and tugged with all the viciousness of an attack, fingers slipping in the slickness as Lelouch shuddered helplessly, coming into his hand and the skirt. His legs wobbled as Suzaku fucked him until, finally, he froze with an animal snarl and Lelouch could feel him pulsing inside. Still trembling, he watched in the mirror as Suzaku lifted the mask and pressed a tender kiss to his shoulder.

"Do you think Millay would notice if I kept the mask?

::

Three days later, they stood in front of the casting board.

"I thought--" Suzaku said, confusion coloring his face and words.

"It's Millay."

"But--"

"It's Millay. People would notice if I killed her."

"It's not _Romeo and Juliet_. It's not even Shakespeare!" Suzaku stumbled on, trying to understand what he was looking at.

"It might be worth it, though," Lelouch pondered, weighing the pros and cons of life imprisonment.

"But…" Suzaku frowned. "What does Shakespeare even have to _do_ with _Little Shop of Horrors_?"


End file.
